New York City – Aftermath Of Mumbai, Commissioner Orders Police To Be Trained Using Heavy Artillery

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    The NYPD practices fighting terrorism at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field.New York City – In the aftermath of the deadly Mumbai terror attacks, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has come out with guns blazing – with a plan to get all 1,000 rookie cops ready to use heavy artillery in time for New Year’s Eve, The Post has learned.

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    The NYPD wants all 1,000 Police Academy recruits trained to use M4 automatic machine guns – which are now carried only by the 400 cops in its elite Emergency Service Unit – in time for the holiday celebration in Times Square.

    The recruits currently at the academy will get three days of training to familiarize them with the weapon, police said.

    The department also plans to train its 2,000 officers in the Organized Crime Control Bureau. They include narcotics, vice, gang- and auto-crime cops. That means five times as many cops will be able to use these powerful weapons as now.

    “In the event of multiple terrorist attacks, these other units will be deployed to supplement Emergency Services,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

    Kelly had proposed training other cops in the use of the weapon, a compact version of the M16 combat assault rifle used by the military, during previous “tabletop exercises” that dealt with responding to multiple terrorist attacks, Browne said. The final decision to undertake the training was made after the three-day Mumbai, India, assault, which began Nov. 26.

    In the carnage in the city formerly known as Bombay, 10 terrorists carrying automatic rifles and grenades attacked a railway station, a market, a restaurant popular with foreigners, two luxury hotels and a Jewish center.

    At least 195 people were killed and 295 wounded. The dead included 18 foreigners, among them six Americans.

    Police sources said NYPD brass decided to train the members of the current academy class because they are all in one place and it is easier than bringing them back for instruction once they are in the field.

    The recruits’ three-day training is being called “familiarization” because it is shorter than the two weeks Emergency Service officers receive on such weapons. However, those cops also get training in other heavy weapons during that time.

    The recruits’ instruction will be carried out at the police range at Rodman’s Neck in The Bronx.

    There is no intelligence Times Square will be a target on New Year’s Eve. The area will be on high alert, but has been so for every year since the millennium


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    18 Comments
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    logic613
    logic613
    15 years ago

    The M6 is not “artillery”. Grenade launchers and mortars are artillery. These are called “long-arms” or assualt rifles. And I still believe that allowing law abiding citizens to carry weapons would stop an attack much faster than arming the police with more weapons. Once a terrorist walks into any building it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, because nobody except the police has the power to do anything.

    murray
    murray
    15 years ago

    like the article says- Times Square is and has always (since 911) been a potential target, so is there something different this year (other than Mumbai Copy cats), that is eliciting this kind of effort, training? I think that if they have some pretty definite idea that people will be attacked, then they should either highly downscale it or cancel it. I don’t want to hear the nonsense, “no we can’t cancel, because then they (the terrorists win” If NYC has citizens shot down, then doesn’t that also mean the terrorists win? I know President Bush said “best thing you can do to fight them is to go out and go shopping, act normal”, but it sounds like this NYC warning may be the real deal, and not just for us “paranoids” Have they raised the “Threat Level” (do they even still use that Color system?)

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    its a fact, whenever people where aloud to carry firearms crime has drmatically declined. right now only criminals and terorists have them and they know it and take advantage of it. shame on the libs for stealing our rights to protect our selves.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Three days of training on an M4 does make you proficient in the use of a semi-automatic or automatic assault rifle. If G-d forbid those rookies are called on to use their M4’s there may be more causalties from them then from the attackers.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Give them bazokas and shoulder fired missles -that would help stop multiple terrorists. It would also be good to stop planes like in 9/11 if they had to. Machine guns are not enough.

    Logic613
    Logic613
    15 years ago

    Also, look carefully at the pictures of Mumbai you will notice that some of the deas actually had sidearms. So, if the police cannot be the ones to protect us 100% of the time, then who will?

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    M6 and M15 are not powerful enough and not accurate enough in crowded areas

    anonymous
    anonymous
    15 years ago

    The answer is better intelligence and electronic surveillance of the e-mail and cell phone traffic and indetify them before they develop a plot